Hi. This is Paul Zellizer, and welcome to the Awarepreneurs podcast. On this show, we dive deep into wisdom from some of the world's leading social entrepreneurs. Our goal is to help increase your positive impact, your profitability, and your quality of life. Before we get into today's topic, I have one request. If you could hit subscribe and do a review on your favorite podcast app, it helps more people learn how to have positive impact through a values based business. Thank you so much. Today, I'm thrilled to introduce you to Benjamin Gardner.

And our topic is Values Through Action, Moving Forward Together Through Employee Ownership. Benjamin Gardner is the Chief Executive Officer of Decker Designs and is a working principal of d and is a working principal of the DPS commercial group. Benjamin is dedicated to improving the built environment using skills acquired from combined backgrounds in architecture, construction, and construction management. Benjamin has been with Decker, Perich, and Sabatini since 02/2001 and has led multiple project teams through all phases of planning, design, and construction administration. His years with DPS have given him a breadth of project experience that informs his unique understanding of the issues faced by developers, educators, and the communities in which the firm does business. Benjamin also has a long history of developing his family owned properties, including hotels, a Montessori preschool, and an elementary academy that serves over 200 students, which he cofounded with his wife. They've recently developed a 78 bed senior living facility that's adjacent to the schools, and it provides intergenerational experiences for both seniors and students. His background provides him with a clear understanding of commercial real estate development, including mixed use retail and civic properties.

Benjamin Gardner, welcome to the Awarepreneur show.

Good morning. Thank you for having me.

You're we're thrilled to have you here, and, you didn't start this work yesterday, did you?

No. I did not.

We're gonna talk about employee ownership, which is a really exciting topic to our business, and we're here. Thank you for being open. I reached out to Benjamin listeners when an announcement went out on LinkedIn that Decker went employee owned, and I reached out and said, please tell us that story. But before we get into the employee owned part of the story, Benjamin, what would somebody wanna know about you and about Decker that didn't come out in that very impressive bio?

Decker's a sixty five year old firm, sixty five plus year old firm that's been serving the community in New Mexico, in Albuquerque, New Mexico through all that time. Several years ago, we opened about twelve years ago, I think it is, we opened an office in Phoenix, Arizona, and we also have an office in El Paso, Texas. We we're an integral part of the communities we work in, not just as a business entity, but contributor. Myself, I sit on several boards here, do a ton of, community service, get active in our state politics as well as in development and economic development in New Mexico. And some of our partners, we have 25 partners at Decker. Well, we had 25 partners at Decker before we went to ESOP, but they are all acting principals in the firm that uprun the different studios we have. So we're a full service architecture and engineering firm. We don't do MEP or mechanical electrical and plumbing design, but we do just about everything else in house through our different multiple studios.

And we have subject ex subject matter experts in government projects, commercial projects, education projects, k to 12 projects, interior design, multifamily housing, structural engineering.

Great. Thanks for that summary. And when I was thinking about helping our listeners who are social entrepreneur oriented listeners, Benjamin, I was thinking about two aspects of Decker before we get to the ESOP part of things. One is you've had a real focus on sustainability and projects that bake sustainability into the DNA. That's one of your sort of wheel houses or your passions. And the other is, as in your bio, social innovation has been really important to you personally and to Decker. Tell us a little bit about those two parts of the work. Well,